Refusing mandatory National Service won’t lead to prison, home secretary says after Tory policy launch
Nobody would go to jail for refusing to comply with National Service under a Conservative government, the home secretary has said.
In the Conservatives’ first policy announcement of the general election campaign, Rishi Sunak said on Saturday he would introduce a new form of mandatory National Service for 18-year-olds if his party wins the vote in July.
They would be given the choice of a full-time military placement for 12 months or a scheme to volunteer for one weekend a month for a year.
The announcement came two days after defence minister Dr Andrew Murrison told the Commons the government has “no plans” to reintroduce National Service and doing so would “damage morale, recruitment and retention and would consume professional military and naval resources”.
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‘Refusing National Service won’t lead to jail’
The military option would be selective but questions have arisen over whether any teenager who refuses to do either option would be punished.
Talking to Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips, Home Secretary James Cleverly said: “There’s going to be no criminal sanctions, nobody’s going to jail over this.”
He added that “nobody will be compelled to do the military element” but said those who do will be paid – while those who choose to volunteer will not be paid.
Mr Cleverly said the main point of the policy is to make sure “people mix with people outside their bubble” for “community cohesion”.
He said those who choose the military option “will be motivated to join the military” after spending a year with the Armed Forces.
Mr Sunak released a video on TikTok on Sunday explaining the new policy to young adults.
No plans to reintroduce National Service
The military service announcement came just two days after defence minister Dr Andrew Murrison answered a question from fellow Conservative Mark Pritchard about whether an assessment had been made to reintroduce National Service.
Dr Murrison said: “The government has no current plans to reintroduce National Service.”
He said the “demanding, increasingly technical, nature of defence” means highly trained, professional men and women are needed to best defend the country.
“If potentially unwilling National Service recruits were to be obliged to serve alongside the professional men and women of our Armed Forces, it could damage morale, recruitment and retention and would consume professional military and naval resources,” he said.
Dr Murrison added that if National Service recruits were in separate units it would be “difficult to find a proper and meaningful role for them, potentially harming motivation and discipline”.
‘Surprise’ policy move dreided as ‘deeply cynical’ by defence insider
The prime minister appears to have had what some insiders regard as a belated epiphany about the critical importance of defence – and now even National Service.
It was just four months ago that Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson slapped down the outgoing head of the army for advocating the need for civilians to be trained to fight given the dangers of living in what the defence secretary has called “a pre-war world”.
General Sir Patrick Sanders had simply been using a speech to state a blunt reality – war and preparing for war is a whole-nation effort as demonstrated daily by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where Ukrainian citizen soldiers are fighting and dying on the frontline.
Rather than support him, a Downing Street spokesperson at the time said that “hypothetical scenarios” involving possible wars were “not helpful” and ruled out any move towards a conscription model for the military.
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Cohesive society
Despite this clear rejection of the idea, the Conservatives have made it their first new major policy announcement.
Mr Cleverly said: “We want to build a society where people mix with people outside their own communities, mix with people from different backgrounds, different religions, different income levels.
“The bulk of this is about helping build a cohesive society where people mix outside their bubble.”
The Conservatives said the National Service programme would cost £2.5bn a year and would be funded by cash previously used for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and cracking down on tax avoidance and evasion.
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James Cleverly speaking to Trevor Phillips on Sky News
But Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, accused the policy of being “yet another unfunded spending commitment”.
She told Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “That UK Prosperity Fund is supposed to be used to tackle economic inactivity and helping people get back into work so that really undermines another one of their arguments.
“This is an unfunded commitment, a headline-grabbing gimmick.”
She added that it does not deal with the big challenges facing young people, and said Labour has a “fully costed, fully funded plan to give young people those real opportunities that they need to build up”.
Sky News can reveal that the government has rowed back on a national compensation scheme for victims of child sexual abuse, despite it being promised under the previous Conservative administration.
Warning – this story contains references to sexual and physical abuse
A National Redress Scheme was one of 20 key recommendations made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), but a Home Office report reveals the government has scrapped it because of the cost.
Marie, who is 71, suffered alleged sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at Greenfield House Convent in St Helens, Merseyside, between 1959 and 1962, and is still fighting for compensation.
Greenfield House Convent, where Marie says she was abused
As soon as she arrived as a six-year-old, Marie says her hair was cut off, her name changed, and she experienced regular beatings from the nuns and students.
She claims a nun instigated the violence, including when Marie was held down so that her legs were “spread-eagled” as she was sexually abused with a coat hanger.
Merseyside Police investigated claims of abuse at the convent, but in 2016, a suspect died before charges could be brought.
Marie has received an apology from the Catholic body that ran the home; she tried to sue them, but her claim was rejected because it was filed too long after the alleged abuse.
Marie, 71, is still fighting for compensation for the abuse she says she suffered as a child
In February, ministers said the law would change for victims of sexual abuse trying to sue institutions for damages, which was a recommendation from the IICSA.
Previously, people had to make a civil claim before they were 21, unless the victim could prove a fair trial could proceed despite the time lapse.
Campaigners argued for the time limit to be removed as, on average, victims wait 26 years to come forward. Changes to the 1980 Limitation Act could lead to more people making claims.
Peter Garsden, President of The Association of Child Abuse Lawyers
Civil cases ‘can take three to five years’
But Peter Garsden, president of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, worries that when it comes to historical abuse where the defendant is dead, institutions will still argue that it is impossible to have a fair trial and will fight to have the case thrown out of court.
Mr Garsden said it takes “between three and five years” for a civil case to get to trial.
He warned that claimants “can end up losing if you go through that process. Whereas the Redress Scheme would be quicker, much more straightforward, and much more likely to give justice to the victims”.
Victim awarded £10 compensation
Jimbo, who was a victim of abuse at St Aidan’s children’s home in Cheshire, took his case to the High Court twice and the Court of Appeal three times, but, after 13 years, all he ended up with was £10 for his bus fare to court.
Despite the Lord Justice of Appeal saying he believed that the abuse had occurred, Jimbo lost his claim because of the time limit for child sexual abuse claims to be made.
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Neither Marie nor Jimbo is likely to benefit from the removal of the time limit for personal injury claims, which is why Mr Garsden is calling on the government to implement a National Redress Scheme for victims of sexual abuse, as recommended by the IICSA.
Hundreds of millions paid to victims
The governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland have set up compensation schemes and paid hundreds of millions of pounds to victims.
In 2023, the then Conservative government said a similar scheme would be organised for England and Wales.
But the Home Office admitted in its Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Progress Update that it “is not currently taking forward any further steps on the IICSA proposal for a separate, national financial redress scheme for all survivors of child sexual abuse”.
“In the current fiscal environment, this recommendation is very difficult to take forward,” it added.
For victims, the scheme was the last chance of compensation for a lifetime blighted by abuse.
“The money is about justice and about all the other people who have had to suffer this abuse,” Marie said.
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